As the Post-Gazette reports it, “international energy ministers, CEOs, investor and activists” will convene in Pittsburgh in late September “to talk about how to speed up deployment of clean energy technologies.”
But all one needs to know what a cluster cluck of a sham the gathering will be is that John Kerry will be in attendance.
Kerry — the current “U.S presidential envoy for climate,” former secretary of State and vanquished Democrat presidential candidate of nearly 20 years ago – “will be [here] to talk about the next phase of the First Movers Coalition, which is a group of more than 50 large companies that promised to pay a premium for net zero or near net zero products, using their purchasing power to jump start cleaner supply chains,” the P-G reports.
Of course, it all comes with what we’ll call “favored by government status.”
But don’t count on Kerry to walk the walk – or, in this case, fly the fly – of his envirocratic talking points. For you see, despite his dire warnings of certain annihilation of Planet Earth if we do not act many yesterdays ago, he’s a major polluter himself. And we’re not talking solely about the hot air of his ecoextreme rhetoric
As Joe Dwinell, executive editor of Kerry’s hometown Boston Herald reminded just last month, “Kerry’s private family jet emitted over 300 metric tons of carbon since [his climate post benefactor President Joe] Biden took office.”
As Fox News has detailed it:
“Kerry’s family jet, a Gulfstream GIV-SP, has made a total of 48 trips lasting more than 60 hours and emitted an estimated 715,886 pounds, or 325 metric tons, of carbon since … Biden was sworn [in] … according to federal data obtained by Fox News Digital via FlightAware.”
As Dwinell did last month in advance of Kerry’s appearance at a Bay State environmental gathering, we are forced to ask if Kerry’s polluting proclivity will be on the Pittsburgh gathering’s agenda.
Of course, it won’t be. “Do as I say, not as I fly,” right John?
“Smug,” “hypocritical” and “hammering the middle class” is how The Herald reports U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, reacted to Kerry’s polluting record.
As David Harsayni wrote two years ago in National Review, also reviewing Kerry’s polluting ways, “If the climate technocrats truly believed that climate change was menacing humanity’s existence, they wouldn’t act the way they do … .”
But they do. And with little apology. If it’s not Kerry, it’s the self-anointed “important” Hollywood stars.
As Kerry quipped not long ago, defending one of the legs of his many polluting travels to end all polluting travels – and “climate change” with it, supposedly — flying was “the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”
Well, heck, let’s break out the tights and cape with a giant “JK” on the chest and cue the soloist: “Me, me, me, meeeeeee!”
Again, Kerry is not alone in his self-aggrandizing pronouncements. Climate pietists are legion among this crowd. But it’s waaaaay past time to keep on keeping silent when they don’t practice what they preach, then defend their sanctimony.
Yes, Pittsburgh will be at the center of the world climate action stage next month. But it can be described more accurately by any old three-ring barker:
“Step right up, the circus will be in town!”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
